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My new deadline: 20 years to give away virtually all my wealth

gatesnotes.com

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Re: My new deadline: 20 years to give away virtually all my wealth

#401

Post by yodsanklai »

wing-_-nuts wrote: post #39

His foundation really does seem to do a good job with 'effective altruism'. There's a reason they're marked as secondary beneficiaries on all my accounts. Also, as a recommendation, you guys should look into whether your employer matches charitable donations to 501Cs in any amount. I find giving a solid chunk of my discretionary budget to charity every year lends a sense of purpose to a job that wouldn't otherwise ha…

My issue with Gates is that he wants to fight climate change, yet he's personally an environmental disaster with his yachts and jets. I'm not saying he has to live like a monk to be credible, and maybe his foundation is doing a good job (never looked into it), but either he's an hypocrite, or I disagree with him on how to fight climate change.

Re: My new deadline: 20 years to give away virtually all my wealth

#402

Post by packetlost »

_bin_ wrote: post #289
packetlost wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You clearly have never actually looked at effective altruism and what it tries to be. You would otherwise know that your values are diametrically opposed to the values of that movement and said values are neither right nor wrong, they're personal.

Of course I have. I am well aware that my values are diametrically opposed to it at a first-principles level; I find utilitarianism to be an incredibly hollow worldview that fails on many grounds, not least of which are the teleological (disordered love is no virtue.) I don't have to argue from the first principles of the EA crowd. Everyone believes in something and I believe they are wrong; your epistemic relativism…

fwiw I'm not an EA and I generally agree with you. It's fine to believe they're wrong, but it's an entirely different thing to tell other people they should think they're wrong.

Re: My new deadline: 20 years to give away virtually all my wealth

#404

Post by faku812 »

yodsanklai wrote: post #401
wing-_-nuts wrote: post #39

His foundation really does seem to do a good job with 'effective altruism'. There's a reason they're marked as secondary beneficiaries on all my accounts. Also, as a recommendation, you guys should look into whether your employer matches charitable donations to 501Cs in any amount. I find giving a solid chunk of my discretionary budget to charity every year lends a sense of purpose to a job that wouldn't otherwise ha…

My issue with Gates is that he wants to fight climate change, yet he's personally an environmental disaster with his yachts and jets. I'm not saying he has to live like a monk to be credible, and maybe his foundation is doing a good job (never looked into it), but either he's an hypocrite, or I disagree with him on how to fight climate change.

It's all about virtue signaling. All he cares about is if people someday decide to "eat the rich" he won't be the first one on the menu.

Re: My new deadline: 20 years to give away virtually all my wealth

#405

Post by guywithahat »

yoyohello13 wrote: post #50

Gates seems like a real embodiment of "Effective Altruism". 1. Get a bunch of money by any means necessary. 2. Donate/invest in altruistic causes. Unfortunately, most people that use effective altruism to justify themselves hoarding wealth seem to forget the second part.

> by any means necessary.

While I agree this is technically accurate, it implies there was something imoral about how he got his money. He created the most popular modern OS and a myriad of other technical innovations. It would be almost impossible to create more positive good in the world through his charitable donations than Microsoft

Re: My new deadline: 20 years to give away virtually all my wealth

#406

Post by guywithahat »

rvnx wrote: post #381

It could have an unintended effect. Injecting this money may create inflation and accidentally increase poverty as more money becomes freely available and circulating. Could be in some way better to just destroy it ?

While I agree giving away money can have negative secondary effects, destroying the money makes no sense and is positively moronic. He should just give it to his kids if he doesn't know what to do with it.

Re: My new deadline: 20 years to give away virtually all my wealth

#408

Post by Disposal8433 »

Spinnaker_ wrote: post #352
tough wrote: post #211

Every billionaire running these are just doing tax avoidalnce at the highest levels i assume?

You think that they hate paying the government money so much that they.... give it all away instead? Yeah, that's some brilliant tax avoidance.

In a democracy, they would give it indirectly through taxes. That should teach you something about both their goals and the world we're living in.

Re: My new deadline: 20 years to give away virtually all my wealth

#409

Post by stewx »

js8 wrote: post #372
throwaway5752 wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. Look at the Walton and other families hoarding wealth by abusing tax law and lobbying to make it even worse, and the armies of advisors and attorneys parasitically helping them. Gates is thousands of times better than most. He and Melinda have done more good for the world than all but a few handfuls of individuals. I've heard estimates his original MSFT stake would be worth over a trillion dollars now.

Among billionaires maybe he is on the good side. But in general? Linus Torvalds did more for the world than Bill Gates, IMHO. And he didn't need to set up a system that first appropriates money in order to "be generous" later.

What diseases has Torvalds eradicated?

Re: My new deadline: 20 years to give away virtually all my wealth

#410

Post by Rebelgecko »

vinceguidry wrote: post #341
Rebelgecko wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why did Bill Gates get preferential treatment for his operating system over others like Steve Jobs or Vinod Khosla? Government connections?

Sure. They ask him for government backdoors, to add stuff to it for military purposes. It's quid pro quo. Bill Gates gets to capture the lion's share of the wealth from his government-protected monopoly with all its anti-competitive practices and the public is left out in the cold.

So other OS's like Sun and MacOS refused to put in backdoors, and that's why Bill Gates is richer?
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